COVER STORY : When Bill Clinton was running for President, he became the toast of Hollywood. But once he got the White House, there were some wafflings and reversals that didn’t go over very well. Now, after the nightmare of the November elections. . . : Can Bill Still Bank on Hollywood?

It was going to be a large fund-raiser in early December for the Democratic National Committee held inside an airport hangar in Santa Monica. At tending would be members of the entertainment community who couldn’t afford the $25,000-to-$100,000-a-ticket bash being thrown the same day for President Clinton at director Steven Spielberg’s residence.

Then came word from the White House. Clinton would not be able to attend either West Coast event. Something about flying to Budapest on an important mission Dec. 5. And with that, both fund-raisers were put off until spring.

Just as well, thought one member of the Saxophone Club, which was going to sponsor the Santa Monica fund-raiser. “We were relieved,” he recently recalled, “because at the moment it was difficult to get people to go sell tickets. People in Hollywood were in a funk.”

The November elections, which brought Republicans to power in both houses of Congress for the first time in decades, did more than send Hollywood liberals into a tailspin. The Republican ascendance--and the precarious political position Clinton now finds himself in heading into 1996--shook the underpinnings of their belief system.

By the time they awoke the day after the election and the Alka-Seltzer had kicked in, many in the entertainment industry gazed with a mixture of fascination and dread as network television brought them the unfolding drama on Capitol Hill: U.S. Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) would be the next Speaker of the House and Sen. Bob Dole (R-Kan.) would be the next Senate Majority Leader.

Since the election, Hollywood has been rife with soul-searching, an industry torn apart not only by agonizing questions about where the country is heading but whether the entertainment community is out of step with the American electorate.

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“I’m absolutely certain we’re out of step,” said Bob Sertner, a Clinton fund-raiser who produces TV movies of the week. “Look where we live and what we drive. Were our eyes opened by the ability of the Republicans to say what they said and get votes? I think so.”

Only two years ago, Hollywood was caught up in the euphoria of Clinton’s dramatic victory.

“The Clinton Administration had been ushered into Washington to thunderous applause, and nobody applauded louder than the Hollywood community,” said TV producer Len Hill. “But after the first two years, the operation of that Administration left even Friends of Bill a bit bewildered.”

“I had such high hopes for the man’s presidency,” said actor Mike Farrell. “I still have high hopes for him as a leader, but I have seen such a profound willingness (by Clinton) to compromise on core beliefs.”

Added one high-ranking studio executive: “Clinton was everybody’s hope and ideal. There was almost a religious fervor around him. Now, I think people are disappointed that he hasn’t fulfilled our dreams. He’s wavered on a lot of issues. Ted Kennedy, no matter what happened, kept his philosophy intact even when he was losing by 28 points in the polls.”

With the Republicans now in power, the executive added, a change has come over some in Hollywood.

“I sense a lot of people are now becoming apolitical,” the executive said. “They are disillusioned. They think, ‘No matter who we believe in, they disappoint us.’ So they now just want to get on with their lives.”

Steve Tisch, the co-producer of “Forrest Gump” and a self-described “big check writer” to the Democratic Party, said the election left him so disappointed that “it will be tougher to write those checks in the future.”

“Maybe I’m the one being naive,” Tisch said, “but I wrote those checks on good faith. I’m prepared to continue writing checks, but I believe now I’m going to write checks to a person, not a party. I’m going to write checks to an intelligent vision that makes sense, not promises in a campaign speech that sound good.”

Then he added: “I ain’t no sucker.”

“This was our first big shot at politics,” said a young agent, recalling the thrill of 1992. “This was our first chance to be part of something. To see it all crumbling is very disappointing. To see Clinton make mistakes, to see him not focus and take positions is very discouraging.”

To be sure, there is no shortage of celebrities who are politically involved, including actor Alec Baldwin--who this fall campaigned hard for Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Sen. Charles S. Robb (D-Va.)--as well as young stars like Sarah Jessica Parker, Lou Diamond Phillips and “Melrose Place’s” Andrew Shue and Daphne Zuniga. On the Republican side, Arnold Schwarzenegger was a big supporter of Gov. Pete Wilson (once giving him a huge bear hug in public), as was “Entertainment Tonight’s” Mary Hart. Actor Scott Baio tossed a fund-raiser for Republican Senate candidate Mike Huffington, and so did Sony and former president of CBS Entertainment Jeff Sagansky.

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Clinton himself retains a number of rich and influential backers in Hollywood, people like Spielberg, Barbra Streisand, producer David Geffen, former Disney studio chief Jeffrey Katzenberg and MCA President Sidney Sheinberg. In 1993, the DNC raised $2.1 million at a dinner hosted by Marvin and Barbara Davis, where donations went for $25,000, $50,000 and $100,000.

But even though Spielberg is expected to host another fund-raiser April 8 for the DNC that Clinton will attend, the event’s organizers are uncertain how much support there is out there. Much will be determined, they say, after Clinton gives his State of the Union address and Gingrich and Dole begin moving forward with their legislative agenda.

“In April, after 90 days of Newt Gingrich, Bob Dole and (Senate Majority Whip) Trent Lott, I think the differences will be more clear,” said one organizer of the dinner.

But another activist added: “It’s hard to say how much support is there until we get on the phone in March and start the fund raising. We know our base will be there.”

For some who supported Clinton in 1992, the recent elections have not altered their views of the man nor the hopes he inspired.

“I’m still a supporter of Clinton’s,” said former TriStar Pictures chief Mike Medavoy. “I think that no matter who had been elected, that today we would have still been facing some sort of disillusionment.”

Kathy Garmezy, who is politically active in Hollywood, said she wants to see more of how Clinton responds to a Republican agenda before giving up on him.

“I have not run across people who have automatically said, ‘the game’s over and we’re on to something new,”’ she said. “People don’t fall out of love that quickly.”

Screenwriter Gary Ross, who wrote “Dave,” a 1993 comedy about a U.S. President incapacitated by a stroke who is replaced by a look-alike, also is unwavering in his backing of Clinton.

“It’s not about stick by him or not stick by him,” Ross explained. “It’s about Bill Clinton represents the same belief system we do.”

One of Clinton’s problems, Ross and others say, is that just like the weekly box-office reports on movies, the presidency is judged daily throughout the media, from CNN to “The McLaughlin Group.” At the same time, they contend, Clinton has been demonized by the religious right and conservative spin-meisters like Rush Limbaugh to such an extent that it is little wonder the electorate is so disillusioned and angry. More than Clinton, they say, the routine tabloid trashing of the presidency has created a climate of cynicism that is eating away at the very fabric of this democracy.

But despite these concerns, some believe the November elections can’t help but shake up the Hollywood liberal Establishment.

“One thing that will come out of all this,” said Hill, a Clinton backer in 1992 who voted for Republican Gov. Pete Wilson last November. “There will be a shake-up in the all-too orthodox Hollywood political hierarchy, which has often seemed to insist on political affinity as a condition for power and promotion.

“I also think we will see a breakdown in the monolith of Hollywood liberalism,” Hill added, “which probably had its apogee in the Bill Clinton fund-raising dinner at Creative Artists Agency (on Dec. 4, 1993). It was like Mike Ovitz and Ron Meyer, the power agents in the town, were saying, ‘This is our industry. It’s a Democratic industry.’ ”

There was a time in Hollywood, recalls producer Lionel Chetwynd, when the politics of the entertainment industry was not so left-of-center that if you weren’t liberal you were considered Attila the Hun. It was a time when Hollywood movie moguls reigned and their films projected to the world a vision of an idealized America that was confident, patriotic and filled with wholesome, mainstream values.

“It is not unremarkable,” Chetwynd observed, “that the current crop of Republicans likes to make reference to old black-and-white films.”

Studio chiefs like Louis B. Mayer were autocratic conservatives, wrote Times political writer Ronald Brownstein in his 1991 book on Hollywood and politics, “The Power and the Glitter.”

“(Mayer) believed passionately in the sanctity of order--order in families, order in society. ‘I worship good women, honorable men, and saintly mothers,’ he told one MGM writer. He brooked nothing that suggested disrespect for tradition; once, when the actor John Gilbert made a disparaging comment about his own mother, Mayer was so offended that he punched him, on principle.”

But as a Jew, Brownstein added, Mayer knew that many Americans had no room for him in their vision of America. He was barred from the best country clubs and business groups in Los Angeles and his children were prevented from attending the best private schools.

At the same time, liberal politics in Hollywood took root with the talking picture, Brownstein explained, as screenwriters and actors trained in the New York theater headed west. With the Great Depression and the rise of fascism in Europe, some liberals in Hollywood soon veered to the fringe, finding a voice in the Communist Party.

Then something happened that shook Hollywood to its foundations, something that to this day has the power to sow fear in the creative community: the blacklist.

It was a time when promising careers were destroyed and entertainment figures began informing on their colleagues.

“People in Hollywood felt betrayed,” Chetwynd said. “An America they had spoken up for and lionized had suddenly turned on them. Suddenly, these superpatriots were having their loyalty questioned. From that moment on, one’s political position was less about opinion than it was about feeling. By the time I arrived in Hollywood, being a liberal was no longer a political position, it was your credential as a good human being.”

The bitterness stemming from the hunt for communists in the late 1940s was so lasting that as recently as 1990, the late actor Robert Taylor’s name was stripped from a building on the Lorimar Studios lot in Culver City after a group of screenwriters and producers protested that Taylor had turned informer on his colleagues decades earlier. It didn’t matter that his defenders argued that MGM compelled him to testify.

As the 1950s dissolved into the Vietnam War-era and the decades to follow, the entertainment industry came to be seen as a bastion of Democratic liberalism and, by the time the 1990s rolled around, it was difficult to find an actor, director or writer who was openly Republican. A screen legend like Charlton Heston, a box-office powerhouse like Schwarzenegger (who married into the Kennedy clan), a maverick like Tom Selleck, or Gerald McRaney, who played a Marine Corps officer on TV (“Major Dad”), could put their careers on the line championing Republicans, but not many took the risk.

“There is a fear of being marginalized in our business if you are identified as being a Republican,” said one producer.

“All conservatives in this town are afraid to express what they think,” said David Horowitz of the Center for the Study of Popular Culture, a group that has organized forums on conservatism and the entertainment industry. “If you are not a Charlton Heston, you are risking a lot.”

Hollywood had high hopes for the Clinton Administration. Like Jack Kennedy, Clinton exuded charm and compassion, moving easily among celebrities and studio executives. More importantly, his core beliefs were their core beliefs.

Two years later, however, the Administration was getting a mixed score card from the film and TV community.

On a strictly business level, the industry was aghast when the Clinton Administration allowed the French to step forward and demand that certain types of cultural activity were not subject to free trade, in effect, imposing a quota on American TV programming throughout all the European Community.

But Hollywood was really stunned when Sen. Paul Simon (D-Ill.) took to the podium one day at the Beverly Hilton Hotel and told some of the most influential people in the TV industry that if they didn’t reduce violence in their programs, Congress would. This was not a conservative like Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) speaking, but a staunch, old-fashioned liberal from a big Midwestern state.

“The overtones of that speech were chilling,” recalled one producer, who was present at the symposium. Here was a liberal Democrat seemingly ready to “abandon the tenets of liberalism and respect for free speech and dissent.”

Then-Atty. Gen. Janet Reno--the top government lawyer--echoed Simon’s call and people in the TV industry became even more alarmed.

“Here was the attorney general getting on a soapbox that was neo-fascist to the extreme,” complained one TV insider. “Hollywood was being scapegoated.”

Added another insider: “Even during the blacklist, no responsible officer of the Administration ever suggested that the language of the First Amendment was anything but unambiguous.”

After the November elections, Clinton himself dismayed many civil libertarians when he made comments that suggested support for mandatory prayer in public schools. He later said his remarks were “over-read” and noted that while he always supported a moment of silence when he was governor of Arkansas, he did not believe in a constitutional amendment to carve out and legalize teacher- or student-led prayer in the classroom.

This wavering, if that is what it was, disturbed some of his supporters. Then there was Clinton’s backing off on the appointment of C. Lani Guinier to become Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, and his recent removal of outspoken U.S. Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders.

While many Democrats viewed these moves as gutsy, even necessary, some in Hollywood worried that with Republicans on the march, Clinton might try to counter them by moving to the right.

Some, like “Dave” screenwriter Ross, said he realizes compromise is a necessary ingredient of politics, but he doesn’t want to see Clinton “morph” (a special-effects term) into being a Republican.

“I think that if there is any message to be derived from ‘Dave,’ it would be that you don’t sacrifice your principles for political convenience,” Ross said. “Dave was too naive to fully perceive the ‘art of compromise’ so all he had were his convictions. In real life, we have to be more vigilant about that.”

One Democratic Party activist added: “If (Clinton) is going to not be a Democrat and he is going to make peace with Republicans on too many issues, then that raises serious questions.”

Some ardent backers say Clinton has a record of achievement that any President would be proud off: the economy is rebounding; the deficit is being cut; democracy has been restored in Haiti; the crime bill has passed, and free trade, despite the exclusion of entertainment, could be a boon for the country as a whole.

But actor Farrell, co-chairman of Human Rights Watch on the West Coast, said the Clinton Administration has been a “major disappointment” in key areas close to his activist heart.

“Their reluctance to be involved in human rights initially in Haiti was an egregious position,” the actor said, “and their waffling on Bosnia was awful.”

Democratic political consultant Pat Caddell, an outspoken critic of Clinton, said Hollywood’s dilemma is that it always “wants to be seduced” by politicians and keeps writing checks to candidates only to get depressed when campaign promises aren’t fulfilled.

“Most people in Hollywood are well motivated, their hearts are in the right place, they want to be where the spotlight is, but they have to wake up to the fact that this guy ain’t for real, the Democratic party ain’t for real,” Caddell said. “The party doesn’t stand for anything anymore.

“I don’t know what this party represents,” Caddell lamented. “Clinton appoints the (former) co-chairman of Goldman Sachs (Robert Rubin) to be secretary of the Treasury. Can you imagine if the Republicans did that? People in Hollywood would have real problems.”

Whatever the future might hold for the Democrats, some say the elections have put Hollywood on notice that it must become more diverse in its politics.

“Certainly, those members of the entertainment community who have business interests in Washington will have to pay attention and be in communication and work with the new leadership of the House and the Senate,” said a Democratic activist.

Added one producer:

“What you will see between now and 1996, is Hollywood will have two voices. For years, Hollywood has basically spoken with one voice, the liberal Democratic voice. Now, for the first time, you’ll see more of a debate.”